2012 Subaru Impreza: Actual vs. Estimated Fuel Usage

January 15, 2013

It's not exactly a secret. It's a story we've covered in the "Tips and Advice" section of our site. We're talking about the fact that the fuel economy gauges in many models tend to paint an optimistic picture when it comes to gas mileage.

Even our otherwise quite trustworthy Impreza is guilty of this small deception. Of course, the discrepancy between actual and estimated numbers isn't (always) huge, and the Impreza certainly isn't the worst offender. But as we point out in our article, if you're using the fuel economy gauge as your sole source of mileage information, over the years, this error in reporting can add up to hundreds of gallons of unreported fuel use.

Here are the differences noted between actual and estimated numbers over the last couple of Impreza fill-ups: